ArticleNature microbiology2025
Intraspecies warfare restricts strain coexistence in human skin microbiomes.
Article in Nature microbiology, 2025. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 8 papers.
What it found
Each row is one number read from the abstract, on the scale the paper reported it, with its interval. Left of the dashed line favours the treatment, right favours the comparator. Under each row is the sentence it came from. New to these charts? A ten-minute tutorial.
The abstract states no effect estimate the extractor could read, or names no intervention and outcome on the map, so this paper lights no cell and moves no belief. It is still indexed, cited and linked below.
The trial behind it
Trials whose registry record cites this paper, or whose number appears in the abstract. A trial that started after this paper was published is citing it as background, not reporting it.
Neither the registry nor the abstract names a trial number. If this is a trial report, that itself is worth knowing.
Who cites it
8 citing papers in PubMed.
- Microbial interactions as key players shaping the emergence and spread ofMicrobiology (Reading, England) · 2026Review
- Review
- Large-scale investigation for antimicrobial activity reveals newly-identified defensive species across the healthy skin microbiome.Nature communications · 2026Article
- The human skin microbiome: from metagenomes to therapeutics.Nature reviews. Microbiology · 2025Review
- Retracing a tangled tree of archaeal evolution.Nature microbiology · 2025Article
- Skin-deep strategies of intraspecific competition.Nature microbiology · 2025Article
- Intraspecies dynamics underlie the apparent stability of two important skin microbiome species.Cell host & microbe · 2025Article
- Previously hidden intraspecies dynamics underlie the apparent stability of two important skin microbiome species.bioRxiv : the preprint server for biology · 2025Article
Corrections and comments
- Update of
Authors and funding
6 authors.
Funding
Abstract
Determining why only a fraction of encountered or applied strains engraft in a given person's microbiome is crucial for understanding and engineering these communities. Previous work has established that metabolic competition between bacteria can restrict colonization success in vivo, but other mechanisms may also prevent successful engraftment. Here we combine genomic analysis and high-throughput agar competition assays to demonstrate that intraspecies warfare presents a significant barrier to strain coexistence in the human skin microbiome by profiling 14,884 pairwise interactions between Staphylococcus epidermidis isolates cultured from 18 people from 6 families. We find that intraspecies antagonisms are abundant, mechanistically diverse, independent of strain relatedness and consistent with rapid evolution via horizontal gene transfer. Critically, these antagonisms are significantly depleted among strains residing on the same person relative to random assemblages, indicating a significant in vivo role. Wide variation in antimicrobial production and resistance suggests trade-offs between these factors and other fitness determinants. Together, our results emphasize that accounting for intraspecies warfare may be essential to the design of long-lasting probiotic therapeutics.
Indexed as
Identifiers
What OpenQuestion holds
Registered trials
Read under generation 80e0d062 · epoch 390. Bibliography from PubMed, PubMed Central and OpenAlex; grants from NIH RePORTER; trial links from ClinicalTrials.gov; estimates, votes and beliefs from the OpenQuestion graph.